Is 'The Club' Stealing America's Children?

October 28, 2007

or

Hang on to Your Kids, the County Needs Money!

By John Waters Jr.

http://www.michael-smith.org/Article2.html

One Saturday morning early last summer in a small room in the middle of

Southern California's playground of the rich and famous, the Coachella

Valley, where Palm Springs' reputation for glitz and glamour still draws

film legends and film makers from all corners of the earth, four adults

sat across the table from a 15-year-old girl named Khila O. At around

5-feet 10-inches, the girl was dressed in the uniform of a

fashion-minded teenager - short denim skirt, sleeveless summer top.

Flawless makeup, multiple ear-piercings, meticulously-styled hair and a

cell phone that jingled frequently from the confines of her blue denim

purse all combined to satisfy the image of a busy, self-confident young

woman, yet she couldn't stop crying.

From behind a small pile of tissue used to stave a runny nose and a

virtual fountain of tears, the honor student and member of her school's

kick ass golf team, paused frequently to control her emotions as she

told the grownups how, over the past year Riverside County Child

Protective Services and a social worker named Scott Johnson, has been

systematically destroying her family. Riverside County Department

Social Services Child Protective Services (CPS) department has taken

Khila's niece from the embrace of a caring family and put her into a

foster home with other foster children nearly 60 miles away and no one

really understands why.

Stories similar to the breakup of Khila's family by child protection

agencies are echoed hundreds of times a year from Maine to San Diego and

Florida to Alaska. They are the stories off how a network of government

employees -- professionals, semi-professionals, power intoxicated,

little-supervised social workers and therapists -- that came to be known

by defense attorneys and victims of CPS actions as The Club, conspire to

remove - steal, some say - children from their families so they can be

adopted by strangers or shuffled off to foster homes, presumably for

little other reason than to generate billions of dollars in state and

federal money for local counties.

In her article, "Government Run Child Marketing Scam: Your Child is a

Government Commodity", Neve Moore, of the Massachusetts News, a radical

underground newspaper, explains the financial infrastructure that

provides the motivation for child welfare agencies to take people's

children - and not give them back.

The problem began, she opines, when the government passed the Child

Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) in 1974. With the act, the

government began feeding massive amounts of federal funding to states to

set up programs to combat child abuse and neglect. "From that came

Child Protective Services, as we know it today," she wrote. After the

bill passed, then Vice President Walter Mondale, who had been a big

promoter of the law, "expressed concerns that it could be misused. He

worried that it could lead states to create a business in dealing

[trafficking in] children."

Enter Bill Clinton. In 1997 President Clinton passed the Adoption and

Safe Families Act (ASF). The ensuing public relations campaign promoted

the Act as a way to help find a home for abused and neglected children

who languish in foster care for years, often being shuffled among dozens

of foster homes, never having a real home and family.

Instead, the Act set a whole new industry into motion. To accompany the

ASF, the President requested, by executive memorandum, an initiative

entitled Adoption 2002, to be implemented and managed by the Department

of Health & Human Services (HHS). The initiative not only gives cash

adoption bonuses to the states, it also provides cash adoption subsidies

to adoptive parents until the children turn eighteen.

The fact that this program is run by HHS, according to Moore, explains

why those who have become victims of child protective services get

little response from their legislators.

Show me the money!

The network of federal and state incentives provides the fuel for a

bureaucratic engine that, according to CPS observers Charles Wittman and

Junior Maning, who co-authored "Children: Captives of CAPTA," published

in the Los Angeles-based Verdict, a trade magazine for lawyers, ignores

compassion, destroys families and often sidesteps the best interests of

the child to sweeten county budgets.

"The primary goal of CAPTA, as stated in federal law, are child safety

and family reunification," they wrote. "However, it has become readily

apparent that the CDSS [California Department of Social Services] takes

children from families and adopts them out in order to collect more

federal monies. There is no effective oversight of this system that is

now out of control."

The amount of money passed between the state and federal governments and

counties to provide child protective services, which includes foster

care and foster care related services, is in the billions of dollars.

In Riverside County alone, the taxpayer-backed budget for foster care is

more than $58 million and there are not quite 4,000 children in the

county's foster care system, according to Assistant DPSS Director Dave

DeMers.

Add to that, adoption bonuses of $4,000 to $6,000 per child, and most

counties find themselves with an impressive tributary to a larger

revenue stream. For example, in 1999, the first year for which adoption

incentive statistics under the 1997 law became available from HHS,

states like California, which reported adopting 3,958 children through

CPS portals in 1998, reported adopting 6,254 children, a whopping 59%

increase over 1998, for a bonus of $4,377,740. Another 8,221 kids were

adopted out of the state's foster care system in 2000, for another

$4,030,572 in bonuses. To receive any bonuses in 2001, the state will

have to adopt out more than 8,221 kids.

How much of that bonus money actually trickles down to counties is not

known and may take some research to determine exactly, DeMers said. He

was firm, however, that none of the bonus money finds its way into the

pockets of individual social workers.

"If indeed, the Safe Families Act provided such incentives at the local

level, it might provide enough incentive for some social workers to cut

corners just to get more children adopted and earn some of those

bonuses, but that just isn't the case," DeMers said. "In Riverside

County, there are absolutely no bonus programs that reward a social

worker based on the number of children he or she adopts out of the system.

"As far as I know, the bonus money is used to buy equipment or pay for

training related to child protective services," he continued. "Social

workers are able to earn extra money in other ways. They are paid

overtime when they go to court, for example."

Other ways in which social workers can earn money is to conduct classes,

such as anger management classes, which are sometimes required by the

court, at the suggestion of social workers as a part of a parent's case

plan.

"There is nothing at the county level that precludes social workers from

moonlighting to make extra money," DeMers said.

Whatever the case, Riverside County, with its overall population of

around 1.5 million, and general operating budget of $2.5 billion, might

be seen by some to be spending a huge amount of money on DPSS.

According to a 1999-2000 Riverside County Grand Jury Report the

1999-2000 Budget for Riverside County's DPSS program was in excess of

$423 million. At the same time, according to State Controller Kathleen

Connell's office, the total budget for the Department of Children and

Family Services in Los Angeles County, with its population of more than

7 million, had a budget of $446 million. Sacramento County spends $93

million.

The State Controller's office has begun an audit of the Sacramento

County and Los Angeles County agencies. A representative of the State

Controller's office said there are no plans to audit Riverside or any

other county presently. Audit letters could be sent to other counties,

however, if the Los Angeles County and Sacramento County audits uncover

significant discrepancies.

Adoption incentive bonuses aside, the California DPSS pulls in about $25

billion annually from the federal government.

Nationwide, money spent on the business of child protection is also

staggering. Few people who keep abreast of current events can forget

the hoopla over the amount of money spent on welfare during the early

1990s, hoopla that led to the reformation of the nation's welfare laws.

The program missed by the spotlight of welfare reform was child

protective services.

Dr. Susan Orr, who worked as a child welfare program specialist for the

National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect within the U.S. Department

of Health and Human Services, wrote in her report, "Child Protection at

the Crossroads: Child Abuse, Child Protection, and Some Recommendations

for Reform," that in 1995 "the federal government spent about $11,698

per child in foster care, whereas it spent only $1,012 for each person

receiving welfare benefits. When factoring in state costs, the average

cost increases even further to $21,092 per child in foster care versus

$2,499 per each person receiving a welfare check."

Money To Burn

"It's not really the difference in the budgets between Los Angeles

County and Sacramento County for children and family services that

raises questions," said Lisa Casalegno, who works for State Controller

Kathleen Connell. "The State Controller's office has decided to audit

the Los Angles County and Sacramento County foster care departments out

of concerns raised by media and grand jury reports in recent years."

Chief among the concerns, Casalegno said, are fears that the money paid

by the state to support foster care programs may not be reaching the

children it is supposed to benefit.

"As a parent," said State Controller Connell, "I am concerned that all

children receive the support necessary to enrich their family lives. It

is imperative that the resources intended to assist them arrive in a

timely and accurate manner."

The audit of these two counties will track state and federal funding to

determine whether the money is indeed reaching the foster families,

group homes and other agencies that provide services to children.

"Our intent is to stop misallocations of funds where it occurs," said

Connell. "We can always hope for additional resources in the future,

but we must make certain we are maximizing the funding that is provided

now."

Stealing Cindy

Like Moore, parents and grandparents who have watched the CPS take their

grandchildren using exaggeration, hearsay and sometimes outright false

accusations, say they believe that for child protection agencies to keep

their budgets from drying up they need to pull more kids into the system.

"Ninety-five percent of the children taken by (CPS) are from low-income

and minority parents, who face the threat of being fired if they miss

work for any cause, including legal appointments, and who do not have

the resources to hire competent counsel" Wittman and Maning wrote.

"CDSS, on the other hand, receives money every time it takes children

away from their parents.

"Soon, CDSS will expand its focus to middle-income families who likewise

have limited abilities to protect themselves."

Pro-family activists working to affect changes in the way government

child protection agencies treat the families that fall into DPSS

clutches blame the politics of finance for influencing child welfare

providers and zealous social workers nationwide to go out of their way

to snap up adoptable kids from blood relatives and shuffle them off to

foster families. Those foster families sometimes stand to increase

their household income and other entitlements by hundreds of dollars

each month per child. One child snapped up by the county for just such

reasons, according to the family, is Cindy J.

Cindy J. is Khila's niece. Cindy is not the child's real name, but

it's close enough. Currently, laws designed to protect her privacy by

shielding her identity from an inherently nosey public, ironically, also

hamper the public inspection of decisions, right or wrong, lawful or

unlawful, allegedly made in the best interest of the child by members of

The Club. The parent's names have also been cloaked in this report to

protect the child's identity.

In her three short years Cindy has had a life that the late author VC

Andrews, who often wrote about the abuses children are forced to endure

at the hands of grownups, might have appreciated. In 1999 Cindy and her

then 17-year-old mother left California for Ohio, but soon returned

rather than tolerate an abusive family member. Until she decided to

move back to California, Cindy's mother, Amanda F., who is now 20 and

living in another county with the father of her second child, a man she

met in a homeless shelter in Indio, had not told Derek N., Khila's older

brother, that he had become a father.

As millennium celebrations were gearing up at the end of 1999, Amanda

called her child's paternal grandmother, Lola Osborne, and announced

Derek's fatherhood. At the time Derek was incarcerated for stealing his

own father's car. When he was released from custody in March 2000 he

filed a Paternity Action in Riverside Superior Court seeking custody of

his daughter.

At first, Amanda chose not to live with her daughter's father or

paternal grandmother. Instead, she and her daughter bounced around the

homes of friends in Bermuda Dunes and Desert Hot Springs and Palm

Desert. Trying to stay one step ahead of a CPS attempt to take Cindy,

Amanda decided to leave Cindy with her grandmother, Lola, and Khila.

CPS supported the decision, and Cindy was locked into the system.

For several months Cindy was in a home where she was given all the

adoration a toddler could stand. She had become an unofficial sidekick

to her teenaged-aunt's golf team, and a familiar figure in her

grandmother's social circles in the Palm Desert country club where they

lived. Today, however, the little girl whose smile beams from beneath a

thick crop of chestnut colored hair, and whose verbal skills remain

underdeveloped at three years old, lives in a home with other foster

kids near Moreno Valley.

The theft of Cindy, that's what the family calls the actions of CPS,

began in January 2000, allegedly without the knowledge of her parents.

The process was essentially completed in June that same year when the

court severed all parental rights for Derek and Amanda, and by

extension, the rights of the grandmother, making Cindy available for

immediate foster care and eventual adoption. Her adoption into her

foster family will be final in January 2002. After that, should her

adopting parents qualify for DPSS aid, the child will be essentially

trapped within the system for the next 15 years. She will not be

allowed any contact with her biological family until she's 18-years-old.

Lola, Khila, Derek, and Amanda, are hoping for a miracle that will end

the nightmare that began when they met social worker Scott Johnson, not

long after Amanda agreed with CPS to allow Lola to have the child.

CPS has declined to discuss the specifics of the Cindy J.'s case.

"We have a client who can't speak, or tell us how they've been treated,"

DeMers said. "So we have to look at the facts given us by the social

workers and investigators and make a decision on behalf of our client.

We do the best we can."

Cindy's grandmother believes CPS never had any intention of keeping the

child with her biological family.

"The baby's mother was willing to let me have guardianship of my

grandchild and we thought that the county was going to guide us in that

process," Osborne said. "When I first spoke with Johnson, he behaved

like he was going to be very helpful - until I told him I didn't want

any money, financial or medical support from the county because my

husband and I were easily able to support the child. He went ballistic.

"He said he wasn't going to go into the politics of CPS," Lola said.

"Of course, at the time I had no idea what he was talking about. Then

he just turned around and walked away complaining 'I have a heavy

caseload and I don't have time for you.'"

The next time Lola and Amanda saw Johnson was in a courtroom in June.

By declining CPS assistance, Lola and her husband would have removed

Cindy from the system, damming the stream of federal dollars that flowed

into the county as a result of Cindy's presence within the system and

blocking any potential for a future bonus. From that meeting on, Lola

and her family allege Johnson has done everything he could to keep The

Club from losing Cindy to her biological family.

Johnson has declined to return numerous phone calls left at his Indio

office.

Court Says: "Share The Girl"

By the following June, Lola and Amanda had grown apart over

disagreements related to the care of the child, and the younger woman no

longer invited Lola to provide for her daughter. On June 12, although

Amanda had filed allegations against the father, including drug use,

physical abuse and threats of violence - all of which she later recanted

in a letter to Derek's probation officer - a judge went against a family

court mediator recommendation that neither parent was fit to raise the

child - and ordered joint custody to both parents. Amanda was to get

her daughter back Tuesday through Friday and Derek would get her Friday

through Tuesday. Derek never took custody of his daughter that first

Friday after the court ruling, instead, he allowed her to stay with Lola.

On June 16 Cindy had to leave the country club that had been her home

for several months and once again occupy a bunk beside her immature

mother at the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission, which she had left months

earlier with a fever and a head covered with lice and open sores. Just

hours later Amanda would lodge more charges against the baby's father,

this time, the charges included abuse of the child, even though the

child had been with Lola and had never stayed with the father.

In a jailhouse interview, Cynthia Ellis, the former director of the

women's center at the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission, said she was

present with Amanda and social worker Johnson the day a doctor from the

Barbara Sinatra Center for Abused Children told Johnson that tests

indicated that no abuse had taken place. Ellis was in Indio jail and

headed to state prison on charges of violating her own probation by

using drugs.

The original allegations of abuse were kept in Derek's file and the

paperwork that would have allegedly cleared him of the abuse allegations

was apparently lost, but formal charges of abuse were never filed.

However, it wasn't allegations of abuse, false or otherwise, that would

eventually play a major role in taking Cindy from her family, her

mother, father and grandmother. The reasons the child would be kept

from her biological family are considered even more asinine by her

relatives - that her grandmother was in denial of her son's drug use and

therefore, could not keep the baby safe from the father, and that the

grandmother had allegedly tried to impersonate a social worker during a

telephone conversation.

"Had CPS filed criminal child abuse charges against my son the case

would have gone into criminal court and CPS would have had to prove

their allegations, and they couldn't, so they just let the allegations

disappear," Lola said. "Instead, they chose to later focus on me."

According to court transcripts of a June 22 hearing, Cindy became a ward

of the state retroactive to June 19. It was during that June 22 hearing

that suspicions of child abuse by the father were brought out and Derek

was told unofficially by a public defender that he "might need" a

criminal lawyer. He was allowed to leave the court and was never

charged. Lola, Amanda, and Cynthia Ellis were also present that day and

although the court documents clearly state the child was to be placed

into CPS custody and removed from the care and custody of her parents,

Cindy left with her mother and Ellis. At the time, even though the

young parents and their daughter had been a part of the CPS system for

many months, neither had ever been given a case plan which, according to

state regulation must be done immediately, or no longer than ten days

after the CPS intervention. They didn't receive a case plan until Aug.

11, and by then, it was too late, their daughter had been taken.

Will The Real Social Worker Please Stand Up?

Because of Amanda's earlier allegations against the father CPS social

worker Jenny Williams ordered Derek to take a drug test, which he

willingly provided on June 20, at the Carreon Chiropractic Clinic in

Indio. The clinic operators refused to confirm whether they gave Derek

the test, or if they even performed drug tests for CPS, but a chain of

custody receipt signed by a former Carreon Chiropractic employee

indicates they did.

One former worker, who asked not to be identified, said the chiropractic

office often did drug tests for CPS and other social services

departments, including Welfare. She said someone always accompanied the

person taking the test into the restroom when they bottled a urine

sample. She said the person being tested would seal the bottle and sign

a chain of custody document.

Derek signed such a document, as did former employee Suzanne Lopez, but

he denied that he was supervised when he drew his sample. He gave the

jar, which he alleged was not sealed, to Lopez, and left the office.

His test was sent out of state to Norchem Drug Testing Laboratory in

Flagstaff, Ariz.

DeMers said the county prefers to have drug tests performed by clinics

"that are the most convenient" to the CPS field offices. He said he was

not aware of any contracts that Riverside County might have with

out-of-state testing labs.

"Most of our tests are done by the Department of Mental Heatlh, here in

the county," DeMers said. "There might be some contractors that do

business with Riverside County that might send the tests to their own

facilities out of state, but most of our tests are done by our own

Department of Mental Heatlh."

On July 11, at yet another hearing related to the taking of his

daughter, Derek and his mother would learn that Derek's test was

positive, a fact which both found unbelievable since Derek had

coincidently taken another drug test one week earlier at the request of

his San Diego-based probation officer. That test yielded negative

results. Searching for answers, Lola called the laboratory to question

the results.

"A Riverside attorney with whom I was consulting at the time read the

results and told me that, according to the results there was enough

methamphetamine in Derek's blood to have killed him," Lola said. "I was

so shocked that I called the lab to see if something had gone wrong. I

asked if they could redo the test and they said they would and faxed me

a form to sign. I called back the next day and they said Johnson had

called them and he was furious when he found out I called. They

suggested I take Derek for a hair follicle test. Which I did a couple

of days later."

Hair follicle tests are accurate up to one year, and should have

indicated whether Jones had been using drugs, but like the test he took

one week before the CPS-ordered test, the hair follicle test showed no

drug use.

"I honestly believe the test was tampered with. If there was enough

meth in the test to have killed him, why was he living? It seems like

common sense that a second test should have been done. Instead, I was

falsely accused of impersonating a social worker for requesting a second

test, but never charged," Lola said. "It seems like my concern over the

accuracy of the drug test results became more important than who would

[be allowed to keep Cindy].

"After that, Johnson continued to make false statements about me, that I

was in denial about my son's drug problem -- which I wasn't -- that I've

had numerous husbands, that I started a business that failed or that I

condoned my son's self-destructive or illegal behavior," she continued.

"They were all lies. He even told Amanda he didn't care if I lived in

a palace, I was never going to see Cindy again."

A supervisor at the Norchem office in Flagstaff, who asked not to be

identified, said he could not discuss the results of the CPS test since

it was confidential information owned by CPS. He did say his Arizona

lab often did tests for CPS and other California agencies. He said in

order to keep a lid on expenses; CPS does not require tests to adhere to

federal standards. Urine samples are kept in storage for one year

should anyone request a second test, then destroyed. By federal

standards all tests are performed twice to verify results, he explained.

By CPS standards, if a test comes back positive the results stand.

"I know if my life were at stake, I'd want a second test," he said. "It

seems like common sense. Unfortunately, the State of California doesn't

seem to think it's worth the expense."

An examination of a copy of the Norchem request form for another test,

an add-on form, faxed to Lola from Norchem reveals that someone with a

small, very precise script filled out the entire form, with the

exception of a line at the top of the page indicating the name of the

person requesting the additional test. Lola's large, flowing signature

is clearly legible on that line. At the bottom of the page, are two

more lines. One for the name of person adding the test: the other for

the name of the person who completed the form. Both lines bear the

initials S.W. The abbreviation used by CPS for social worker is SSW not

"SW." The Norchem technician with whom Lola alleges to have spoken was

named Scott Whitman. Whitman, too, would not comment on the issue.

Johnson, according to Lola, asserted that the SW meant social worker and

that Lola had filled in the blank. Johnson still has not returned

numerous phone messages left at his Indio office. According to the

transcripts of another court hearing held July 18, Lola told the court

that she believed Johnson and the technicians at Norchem had lied about

her alleged impersonation of a social worker to cover their own actions

and to taint the court's decision in the matter of Cindy's guardianship.

It seems to have worked. In April, 2001, Lola received a letter from

Dennis Boyle, CPS director, indicating that because of allegations

brought by Johnson regarding "a request for lab test results . a

recommendation was made that you be denied all contact with [Cindy] and

..your standing in this matter be revoked."

At that same hearing, court transcripts indicate, Johnson admitted that

he had never conducted a structured interview with Lola, never performed

a background investigation requested by social worker Jenny Williams or

completed an evaluation of Lola's home.

Although Amanda had just lost custody of her daughter, Johnson took her

to the county welfare office to apply for welfare benefits immediately

following the June 22 hearing, according to Lola and family friend

Debbie Strom. Ten days later [6/29/2000], Amanda received the first of

a pair of welfare checks; the second came in another two weeks

[7/12/00]. Both checks were for $481 and both were sent to the rescue

mission where former director John Landes held them until Amanda left

the shelter on July 31.

To Grandma's For The Night

The day she left the shelter Amanda called Lola and told her she'd had a

change of heart. She felt the shelter was no place for a toddler and

she wanted to return Cindy to her grandmother. Gun shy as a result of

previous accusations that she impersonated a social worker, Lola said

she would only take the baby if the police were involved.

In his report, Indio Police Officer Rody Johnson reported that Amanda

wanted to take the child to the grandmother's house, but he wrote that

he couldn't allow that immediately because the child was a ward of the

state and a social worker could not be reached.

Additionally, Officer Johnson wrote "I asked [Amanda] if she knew that

Cynthia Ellis, the director of the rescue mission, had court-ordered

custody of her daughter, [Amanda] said 'no' she wasn't aware, nor had

she been told any such thing."

After reviewing the facts with his watch commander, Sgt. T. Miller,

the Indio police agreed to take Amanda and her child to Lola, leaving

them with instructions to call CPS the next morning. On Aug. 1, social

worker Johnson showed up at Lola's home with a police escort and took

Cindy away.

The Club's Way Or The Highway

Lynn Roos, an attorney in Los Angeles who has tried a few cases in the

family and juvenile courts, said The Club is not an organized entity,

like a writer's guild or a bowling team, but that the network of

professionals, semi-professionals, court officers, social workers and

therapists is a closed society that will masticate anyone who challenges

the system all the while alleging they are only protecting the rights of

a client - the child - in the court.

"What you have in some cases is a judge who has worked in the courts for

some time, maybe even in juvenile or family court, before becoming a

judge," Roos said. "Therefore, he knows the public defender, he knows

the county council, and the county council knows the judge and the

public defender; then you have the council for the child welfare

department and they know all the rules. When someone new comes into the

court to represent the rights of parents they are not familiar with the

jargon of the juvenile court and they often don't know the players.

They get intimidated by the lack of due process, chewed up and spit out

and, in many cases, chose to not go back into that court."

That's consistent with Richard Houghton's experience in the Riverside

County Juvenile Court and Family Court. He described the courts as

"pretty much in chaos" and said that anyone who challenges The Club can

be in for a rough ride.

"The real problem is that you have a group of people who are in the

court every day and have gotten to know each other very well over

coffee. They talk in the halls, and chat about cases away from the

court room," Houghton said. "In a normal setting you have the judge,

the public defender, county counsel, social workers and conflict

resolution managers, then in comes a parent with a lawyer who doesn't

know any of them, so the situation becomes adversarial. It's a

courtroom full of government employees against the people."

While representing Lola in her efforts to give Cindy a home, the Indian

Wells-based attorney, was nearly thrown out of court.

"In my opinion, I thought I was defending my client rights against

allegations [impersonating a social worker] that I felt had little real

relationship to her ability to take care of her granddaughter," Houghton

said. "Although I was trying to see that she was given due process, the

court did not take kindly to my efforts and Judge Art Block warned me I

would drop my argument or he would have the deputy remove me from the court.

"I've been practicing law since 1973 and that has never happened once,"

he said.

Can't Touch This, Yet

In June 2001, a Riverside County Grand Jury member by the name of Bill

Burnett resigned from the jury. After he left, he expressed his

feelings about CPS workers in one sentence to the Riverside County daily

newspaper, the Press-Enterprise: "They feel autonomous in their actions."

Like Riverside County CPS, child protective agencies nationwide have

been investigated repeatedly by grand juries or audited by independent

agencies like the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), and have been

repeatedly found lacking in key areas, including a lack of established

checklists to ensure that proper decisions are being made by social

workers, emergency room staff, that complete investigations are done,

that risk assessments are complete and that visits to abused or

neglected children or parents are made in accordance with the law.

Riverside County CPS was targeted by the Grand Jury in 1998 and again in

2000. Jurors in the second probe found that many of the same issues

exposed by the first probe remained in the second, most notably a lack

of training and a lack of accountability among social workers. In that

scathing report, the last of the 1999-2000 session, jurors opined that

each of the county's six regional offices operated as autonomous

fiefdoms, without coordinating services with the county and that social

workers often failed to make adequate decisions about the welfare of the

children and the families.

Reacting to the 1999-2000 probe, the Riverside County Board of

Supervisors asked CWLA to have a look at Riverside County DPSS and

report back. In late June, CWLA turned over that report. If DPSS was

hoping for a clean bill of health it didn't get it.

The report, "Riverside County Child Protection Review: Final Report,

June 2001," was the second report filed by CWLA since 1996. In the 1996

report, CWLA looked chiefly at emergency response, and in-home services.

In this latter report, the scope was broadened to include emergency

response, out-of-home care, cross-system partnerships and CPS management.

In the two areas where comparative examinations of both reviews were

possible, DPSS still hadn't improved in developing consistent risk

assessment guidelines, decision-making criteria and guidelines that

would insure the safety of kids, the report announced.

In the other areas CWLA reported that DPSS continues to lack appreciable

guidelines for emergency investigations and investigative guidelines.

The report placed the blame for the inconsistency in the field squarely

in the lap of a management team that fails to lead or implement

suggestions for improvement by many social workers and others.

San Diego Deceptions

Media and grand jury reports from around the country seem to indicate

that the organizational neglect and abuse of families by The Club is a

national problem. Sometimes The Club's foot soldiers, the social

workers, simply make mistakes. Other times they set out to play God.

In a letter from the San Diego County Grand Jury to District 16

Assemblyman John Burton, the San Diego County Grand Jury, after

evaluating the San Diego County CPS system in 1992 wrote that it had:

»

seen repeated episodes of social worker perjury, even in court

testimony;

»

heard testimony by attorneys and court-appointed therapists that social

workers have threatened to remove them from court-approved lists if they

failed to adhere to social worker recommendations;

»

seen evidence of social workers placing children with an unfit parent

in an apparent reprisal against the other parent;

»

seen documented evidence of social workers conspiring to place children

for adoption with their own families even while reunification with

natural families was in process;

»

read numerous social study reports written by social workers [that are]

filled with innuendo, half-truths and lies.

Immunity Must Go

One fact that the San Diego Grand Jury felt contributed to the abuse of

children and their families by The Club is that social workers

nationwide, through CAPTA, are given absolute immunity from liability in

their decision-making.

The San Diego County Grand Jury fired a shot across The Club's bough.

"The Jury believes the current system of absolute immunity [for CPS

social workers] is the single greatest deterrent to change.. absolute

immunity must go. Having seen the results of this immunity in the lives

of the citizenry, we adamantly believe it must."

On April 25, 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a U.S. Court of

Appeals ruling that social workers are entitled to "absolute immunity

from liability" which "ensures that they are "not deterred from

vigorously performing their jobs as they might be if they feared

personal liability."

The highest court in the country tossed out an appeal by Ian Hoffman, a

father who was arrested and stripped of his right to see his daughter as

the result of false allegations of child abuse. The two social workers

who brought the allegations neither questioned the daughter nor allowed

the father a chance to respond.

CAPTA, the same law that gives social workers their immunity, extends

that immunity to people who report suspected abuse. In most states, a

person who reports suspected child abuse in good faith is absolutely

immune from criminal and civil liability.

For that reason, many believe that being faced with defending a civil

action for reporting suspected abuse is preferred to the bleak

alternative of defending a civil action if a child is injured or killed

as a result of failing to make a report of suspected child abuse.

In Chicago, in April 2001, another shot was fired that could have

national ramifications for members of The Club, because virtually every

state in the nation investigates child abuse and neglect in a similar

fashion. In a 102-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer

ordered the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to

revamp how it investigates allegations of child abuse and neglect

because the current system is "unconstitutional and has too often led to

false accusations of wrongdoing against child caregivers."

Although the Chicago case was brought on behalf of child caregivers,

such as one plaintiff, a 10-year-old girl working in a daycare center

run by her parents who was investigated for helping young children pull

up their pants after using the restroom, the judge said evidence

repeatedly underscored that social workers used a low standard of proof

to find abuse or neglect, a standard that allowed social workers to be

"one-sided and superficial," the judge is quoted in the Chicago Tribune,

"often disregarding evidence in favor of the accused."

Sending The Club a message On June 19, in Indio, a group of protesters

demonstrated peacefully in front of the Children's Protective Services

building before carrying their flyers and protest posters around the

corner to walk with slow and measured steps in front of the Juvenile

Court building on Oasis Street. In spite of the early summer heat,

protesters managed to keep their individual tempers in check. They had

a message to project. They wanted The Club to know that families and

children are tired of taking it on the chin for The Club's mistakes and

abuses stemming from CPS and Juvenile Court systems that abuse the

children it is charged with protecting.

Michael Smith, of Desert Hot Springs, is currently appealing a series of

CPS and Juvenile Court decisions that have separated him from his

22-month-old daughter for nearly 18 months. He is currently paying $35

hourly for chaperoned visits with his own child, although no record of

abuse exists. He charges that The Club's allegations keeping his family

apart are based on lies, exaggerations and half-truths designed to steal

his daughter.

In April 2000, Smith's mail order Filipino bride left their Desert Hot

Springs home when the family fell upon hard times. He had proposed she

return to her family in her native home in the Philippines for a visit

while he restored the family's finances. Rather than heading for the

Philippines, she went to a shelter instead; where she stayed for two

months, calling home frequently to talk with Smith, ask for money or to

say the baby missed her father. Smith said he believes someone at the

shelter coached his estranged wife to file charges of abuse so she

wouldn't be deported for leaving her husband.

It wasn't long before CPS representatives approached Smith with

allegations of physical abuse against the child by Smith, filed by his

wife. CPS took the child and put her in a foster home, where she lived

for several months, even though a doctor who examined his daughter

following the allegations filed a report indicating "no evidence of abuse."

"My wife had been complaining that she was homesick and missed her

family, so I suggested she visit her family for two months so I could

concentrate on getting our financial house back in order, but she

thought I was trying to get rid of her," Smith said. "CPS sees this

baby, whose mother could be deported, and they feel if they get the

child from me, they will have another baby they can put up for adoption."

In the opening brief of his appeal to the Riverside County Superior

Court, Smith alleges the Juvenile Court terminated his right to custody

of his daughter in his absence, without a hearing and over his

objections and cut short services meant to reunite the family two months

short of the six-month review schedule. It also charges that because

the court failed to hold a single hearing on the issues before

terminating his right to his own child, that the court violated Smith's

right to due process. Additionally, it says restraining orders issued

barring him from approaching his family or CPS offices during his

ordeal, were issued without unlawfully.

State law governing court procedures states that a hearing must be held

and statements made in court under penalty of perjury before restraining

orders can be issued. Smith's appeal brief charges, "The record does

not show that any verified written statements or in-court testimony,

under penalty of perjury, were submitted to the court to support a

restraining order. The same is true for every subsequent hearing at

which the restraining order was expanded or continued."

"They just didn't like me because I was not just going to step aside and

let them take my child," Smith said. "I challenged their authority and

I'm doing everything I could to get my daughter back, and they have been

doing everything they can to take her."

The kinds of abuse Smith alleges in his appeal to have faced over the

past 18 months are the kinds of abuses the Child and Family Protection

Committee hopes to prevent in the future by changing state law.

"As is it exists, the system assumes that people are guilty just because

they are accused and people are put through a terrible and costly

bureaucratic process until the accusations are shown to be false," Smith

said. "Additionally, studies posted on the Department of Health and

Human Services own website demonstrate that children are ten times more

likely to be abused in state care than in their own homes, and they are

murdered three to five times more often in state-sponsored care."

If approved by voters in March 2002, the Child and Family Protection Act

could be the first significant step in the reformation of California's

CPS and Juvenile Court systems.

The act proposes to change at least six aspects of current law. The

changes would provide:

» Trial by jury, all trials should be heard my a jury, not decided

by a group of government employees;

» Render hearsay evidence inadmissible, all evidence and opinions

cited by social workers or CPS lawyers must be supported by verifiable

evidence;

» No double jeopardy, if a person is charged with child abuse and

exonerated, that person may not be charged again if someone claims to

have new evidence;

» No waiver of right to trial when accepting jurisdiction, when a

person accepts the jurisdiction of the court in Juvenile Court, he or

she cannot be required to waive the right to trial;

» Open courtrooms, Juvenile Courts may no longer operate as closed

courts, but must be open to the public as with any other court, except

in cases when protecting the merits of a specific case;

» Speedy trial/relative preference, cases involving placement must

be decided within 30 days, with placement preference given to relatives.

Smith and others are pushing petitions locally to get the Child and

Family Protection Act on next spring's ballot. For more information

regarding the Act, contact:

The Child and Family Protection Committee,

455 Capitol Mall Suite 801,

Sacramento, California. 95814

Florence@CoalitionToPreserveFamilies.org

Contact Michael Smith at 760-251-0176 or email him at Info@Michael-Smith.org

John Waters Jr. is a freelance journalist. He may be reached at

watersj754@aol.com

October 28, 2007